
lass. 



Book 






PRESENTED 1!Y 



Htnrnln 



A i'l^rmnn 



Charles Parker Connolly 

PASTER PLYMOUTH CHURCH 

MILWAUKEE:. WIS. 



A REVISED VERSION OF A SERMON PREACHED IN THE FIRST 

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. LEAVENWORTH. KANSAS. 

ON THE ONE HUNDRETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

BIRTH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. DELIVERED 

IN MILWAUKEE. APRIL 12th. 1911 




PUBLISHED BY A FRIEND 

LEAVENWORTH 

1911 



HARMON QUALITY PRINTING 



It A 



Gift 
Author 
(Pflritn> 

KOV 21 1914 



Abraham Cinrnlu 



Abraliam T.incfiln was a q^reat author, a ^rcat writer, a great 
orator, a j^reat statesniaii. and a great leader. 'Jdiese are lofty 
titles hut they do not exi)ress his greatest greatness, lie wa^ a 
great teaeher. His sehool is the I'nited States; his pupils, all 
thoughtful citizens to the last days of the Re]nil)lic ; his lesson, 
the life he li\ed. lie was a teacher in the great school of life, 
one of the greatest teachers that e\er li\ed. That is his pre- 
eminent distinction, for deeper than all the profound political 
])roblenis which he clarified are those fundamental issues o[ 
character and right lixiug upon which he throws a tlood of light. 

Historians. l)iogTa])hers. orators and ])(>ets have eulogized 
him; they have ransacked his whole career to record everything; 
they have accorded him unstinted j)raise and honor. It m<'_\' 
seem impossible to say anything of worth after such biograi)hers 
as Xicolav and I lay. C"ar])enter and Rothschild, after such 
poems as those of I^ldwin Markham and Shirle\' llrooks. and 
after the man who had ])ri)uoi.niced him ""a low cunning clown 
had been concpiered and said, "ilere lies the most ])erfect rule: 
of men the world has ever seen.'" Yet there is one phase of his 
jjreatness that has not been sufficiently em])hasi/.ed though nflen 
recognized. 1 1 is his greatness as a teacher. We discuss it tliif. 
morning not to honnr him, but to honor ourselves, lie does not 
need our eulogv ; we need his lesson "lest we forget" 



As a teacher he was an iconoclast. He shatters no physical 
idol before which superstition l)ows the body, 1)iit that mental 
ideal before which civilization has often unfortunately prostrated 
and debased its intellect. I refer to the delusion that, "o^reatness 
is." to quote the words of an orator, "on a pedestal of the cen- 
turies." That is to say, it is hig'h above us on a pedestal for ad- 
miration as shining- statues are. Lincoln teaches us that g-reat- 
ness is a live thing down among us for human service. He was 
never once on a pedestal, for no matter how we may exalt him in 
our affections, his greatness was not of uncommon ingredients 
to make us his hopeless admirers instead of his hopeful follow- 
ers. His greatness was of the common clay, as Markham ])er- 
fectly puts it, "the color of the ground was in him, the red 
earth." His greatness was of the people and for the people aiKJ 
hopefully reminds us that the same greatness can be by the 
people. 

No teacher of rhetoric or literature in any school or college 
was a clearer expositor of Longfellow's "Psalm of Life' thai: 
Abraham Lincoln, for when Longfellow says. 

"Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sul)lime." 

Lincoln does not expound, he demonstrates the truth of that. 
He makes his greatness not out of rare, inaccessible materials, 
nut out of homespun, common virtues within the reach of every 
mother's son of us. His greatness is a moral victorv, not a ca- 
price of fate, not a prodigy of genius, nor a favoritism of Provi- 
dence. 



Because he teaches clearly, convinc^ing-ly. charminp;-ly the real- 
ineaniiiLi" and accessibleness of greatness, we need to review the 
lesson of his life. It is fitting- to begin with the lesson that he 
teaciies far l^etter than any (^ther man save Jesus. That lesson I3 
the greatness of simplicity. Pastor Wagner's book on "The 
Simple Life" docs not interpret it so well as does the actual life 
of Lincoln, and that oft-(|uoted phrase, "the simple life," is to- 
day as frequently uttered with a smile as with an air of serious- 
ness. W'c should like to be sim|)le. or we think we should like to 
be simple, but we do not know how. To live the simple life we 
wonder what external adjustment is demanded; what great revo- 
lution is recpiired. We think that to be in the midst of conven- 
tional restraints and artiticialties. life is inevitably made arti- 
^lcial. \'et we do not seriously believe that a retreat to the 
wilderness mends matters. Tluireau seems a parasite living on 
ti-.e outside of the civilization he thought he had escaped. Then 
we look at Lincoln and feel that he was just as great and just as 
.-imple when he was in the turmoil of tht- ^Vhile Hcuse as when 
sj^litting rails in the lonclv forest ; that simplicity is not a matter 
of envirounuMU nor of career, but of the spirit. In all of the per- 
'ple.xities and entanglements and complexities of the Presidency 
in that strenuous administration of our history. Lincoln wa^^ 
simple. ( )ther men around him were trying to be profound and 
brilliant, and one of the most difficult tasks he had was trying to 
simi)lify those artificial men. lie seemed to have said once fci 
all. affectation get thee behind nu-. lie di<l not try to be great; 
lie did not trv to be ])rofound : he tried to be Lincoln. I U' had 
the courage and rectitude of selfhood. Mr. I'.merson said, "If a 



sing'le man plant himself undaunted on his instincts and there 
abide, the huge world will come around to him." Mr. Lincoln 
proved that Emerson was ri.2^ht. The world has come around Lo 
The rail-splitter, the lie-splitter, the artificiality-splitter. One of 
the most sweeping-, magnanimous retractions of history is that of 
the London Punch. It had failed to understand so simple a 
character. It wanted a gilded mask instead of an honest man. 
But simplicity was vindicated at last for Punch printed this 
glorious stanza : 

"Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer, 
To lame my pencil and to confute my pen. 
To make me own this hind of princess peer. 
This rail-splitter, a true-born king of men." 

The second lesson li^ teaches is the worth of sympathy. It 
is not necessary to dwell upon the familiar fact of his tender- 
heartedness. The impressive thing is that he felt that the prob- 
lems of a struggling nation were not so grave as to justify him 
in turning aside from any lowly woman who came to him for 
comfort. The heart-aches of loyal sufferers could not be side- 
tracked for the grave affairs of state. The man who did not 
leave a pig to flounder in the mud, but spoiled his clothes to re- 
cover it, could not permit the awful din of war to silence tlie 
faintest whisper of human need. It would be an insult to your 
intelligence to repeat the sorrows of his history. They have be- 
come the A B C's of American history. Some day they will ijc 
regarded not alone as classics of history, but classics of states- 
manship. Then we shall have more statesmen like the la- 



niented John [lay, the poHtical ])ui)il of Liiu-ohi. for we shall ask 
our Prime Ministers of State to he (^ur l))reniost ministers oi 
ehcer and comfort and ]ieaee. We little realize how much vvc 
need sympathy, man for man, ret^ardless of all class distinctions 
m order to he etYective patriots. We are constantly tem]:)ted to 
do with elaborate laws and ])retentious artifices what could i)e 
done very easily by sym])athy. \\'e fors^et that it is the atmo3- 
])hcre that develops the best in man and that when withdrawn, 
men are like troj^ical plants brought to the arctiof^ The best in 
them is stunted. Despite a thousand stoves and furnaces \\ c 
are uncomfortable in winter, but when the June sunshine comes 
we .e^ive up the sorry substitutes. If capitalists will sympathi/:e 
with laborers and if laborers will sympathize with capitalists, 
we shall be able to soKe our industrial problems, and unless we 
do that, we shall s;et at the skin l>ui:1iot at the heart of the prob- 
lem. Mr. Lincoln's achiexement would have been absolutely 
impossible had he iiiiiored the tj^reat importance of sympathy, had 
he failed to trv to understand men ; had he insisted upon his 
own projects before i^ettinjj close to the hearts of earnest, though 
misguided thinkers. Try to imagine it.. Think of Mr. Lincoln 
doing what he di<l without his deep sympathy. 

This man teaches also the power of |)atience. When he 
went to Washington he found eminent men incai)al)le of get- 
ling together, of api)reciating one another's sincerity, of preserv- 
ing the union, because they would not patiently discuss matters. 
The north was ini])atient of the south ; the south impatient of the 
north and northerners were impatient with one another. Lincoln 
then revealed, as it had never been revealed before in histor}-. 



the power of patience. His patience kept his mind open. Pr?- 
■judice crazed the best minds and made them impatient. They 
set ont to solve proljlems before they were studied ; to lead mer. 
before they knew men. As Brownin^^ put it. "to act the but- 
terfly before they have played out the worm." When a thou- 
sand impatient men were trying- to make him act Lincoln m- 
sisted upon studying his problem. You and I can quote the 
proverbs of nations and the wonderful statements concernmg 
patience but nothing will make us more likely to hunger an-l 
^hirst for patience than to see its power in the life of Lincoln. 

You mav be surprised at the fourth lesson that T insist he 
lias taught us. Some will be disposed to deny that he teaches 
us this lesson, but I am firmly convinced that Lincoln teaches 
as a great religious lesson. He was an intensely religious man, 
not religious in a dogmatic, theological, ecclesiastical sense. 
He was perplexed concerning creeds. He was not a church mem- 
ber. He made no public profession of Christianity so far as I 
know, but he read his liible; read it not to make dogma out of 
it. but to make a noble life out of it. He prayed not that lie 
might be saved, not that he might get from earth to heaven, but 
that earth might become more of a heaven. He loved his fel- 
low-men. loved them with a reverence and sincerity and service 
that was in many essential respects Christ-like. He loved his 
enemies. It is doubtful whether the south had a truer friend 
lhan the ])ersccuted man in the \\'hite House. 

If the churches in his day had been big enough to make 
room for a big man instead of little enough to tightly fit orthodoA 
dogmatists, Mr. Lincoln would have been a church member. It 



is important that every churcli should recognize that Mr. Lincoln 
was truly and decpl}-. if not conxentionally, religious, for it is 
exceedingly im|)ortant that churches should recognize religion 
when they see it. and honor it howe\'er ])erplexe(l and falsely 
labeled. Our churches would be blessed if they would open 
wide their doors and hearts to men of his light and leading. 
The simplicity, the sympathy, the patience of this great man 
would have been impossible without the rexerend humility, that 
sacred sense of responsibilitv which belongs to true religion. It 
is well to praise him for his deeds; it is well/fc>< ^atefully ) love 
liim for his service; it is still more loyal to him to permit his 
love to teach us afresh the glory of simplicity, sympathy, patience 
and spirituality. 



PRINTED BY 

The Harmon 
Printing Co. 

LEAVENWORTH. 
KANSAS. 







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